The Man Who Stood Up

In a card room above a hardware store in Louisville, I once watched a man named Dell stand up from a table while he was still smiling. He had a pocket watch and a rule. When the watch said ten, or his coat pocket got a certain weight to it, whichever came first, he put on his hat and said good night. Nobody could talk him into one more.

What struck me was how early he left. He never stayed to see the night turn. He left while the table still liked him, while the other fellows wanted his company and his money both. He tipped the house, nodded at me, and walked down the stairs like a man going home to something.

I could not do it. I stayed. I always stayed. I told myself a man leaves when the night is done, and the night was never done, because I was the one deciding and I never wanted it to be. I waited for the feeling that said now you can go. In forty years on the road it never once arrived.

There was a night in Lexington I still think of. I was up early, up good, and a small voice said go. I told it I would go after the next hand. By four in the morning I had given it all back and borrowed against a car I had already half sold. I left when the room made me, not when I chose to.

Here is the thing Dell knew that took me most of my life to learn. You do not walk away at the end, because there is no end. You walk away at a mark you set before you sit down, while you can still stand up smiling. The leaving is a muscle, and you build it on the small nights so it is there on the big one.

Dell is long gone now. I never told him he taught me anything, because it took me too many years to know it. But I keep a watch on my counter, and when a young fella asks me how you know when to quit, I point at it and say, before this says so, not after.

If standing up has gotten hard to do, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET.

Set the mark. Stand up while you are still smiling.

Sal